Free The Fixtures Campaign

A new group have set up to protest at 3rd parties such as independent websites having to pay for the publication of fixture lists.

All newspapers, sites etc have to pay the fee and 'free the fixtures campaign' question why us fans should have to pay for the 'privilege' of advertising (which is what fixtures basically are) the fixtures for the games we all pay our hard earnt money to go and watch. Vital Football have had to take the stance that we won't publish fixtures due to the costs involved and most independent sites take the same position. For us to do it across the network we would be looking at a fee in the region of £13 000 + VAT, something that just isn't economically viable!

So, if you have an interest, these are the details of the campaign set up. This isn't run by anyone involved with Vital Football but I think like most football fans, we echo the sentiment, we should be able to publish the fixtures as the fans are what makes this game and without us it would collapse.

On Thursday 14th June the fixtures for the 2007/08 football season were published. However most fan run websites will not be displaying them....

Football DataCo Ltd is a British company that grants licenses to third parties allowing them to reproduce certain intellectual property such as fixture lists and statistics. Football DataCo is wholly owned by FA Premier League and The Football League. The standard fee for the reproduction of a single team`s fixture list currently stands at £266 plus VAT.

This fee is charged to all 3rd parties including independently owned football fan sites and fanzines. Numerous fan sites have been closed as a result of legal action initiated by Football DataCo Ltd.

We the fans should be free to publish our teams fixtures on our sites.

Please sign the petition and we will present it to the people that are responsible for charging the fans to publish THEIR fixtures!